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2035 Olympics Science Contest
Moon - Earth In the dusky twilight zone between the Moon's reflected light and the void of space, extended shadows from the rims of shallow craters and bleak, worn canyons crawl slowly across the lakes of ancient dust like dark claws retreating from the sun. All is still, as it should be in an airless environment, except for occasional, inexplicable vibrations that seem to come from the underlying basaltic rock of this region. As the audience settles into their seats, background music is played. Alas due to royalties it is only one track on loop... http://youtu.be/Jm-upHSP9KU Brontosaurus is too big to fit into the seating. So he happily sits to one side and will act as seating for others he knows. It's not like he ever has to worry about getting a good view. The cameras begin to roll, the lights come up, the music fades, spotlights moving around the crowded arena. And out comes the host for this Olympic event that promises to have more explosives than well, all three FFA's combined. Having suffered the annoyance of judging combat rounds without being rewarded with the loosers bodies, and from his own science experiment in gambling with Blitzwing and co. (and losing all of some other dead competitors cash, but nobody can prove this), Astracius rises up on a platform from below the specially built arena. He demanded that the science contest gets it's own arena for him to host in, and so the Olympic committee agreed to have one temporarily setup on the Moon. The Terran governments agreed as they figured safer there than blowing up the planet once they found out Wheeljack might be involved. However while Astracius is present, none of the competitors are here. Astracius addresses the crowd, "Welcome foul beings, slaves and enemies of the Quintesson Empire!" Well, have to keep up appearances. "You are all here at the Olympics to witness powerful beings destroy each other, yet no power in the universe matches science, and so I will allow inferior scientists to show you the true and complete destructive force that science wields. Or fail and be mocked by those they would claim as their peers." As Astracius speaks, 3 holographic projects rise up out the ground forming a half circle with Astracius at the centre point. Over his head a larger holographic projector cycles through the images the others show. On each of the smaller projectors appears a competitor. Astracius introduces them, "Welcome to the competitors for the title of Olympic Science Champion! For the safety of all, each of our competitors has been transported to a separate uninhabited solar system." Astracius waits for the inevitable posturing and bickering among the competitors (who can also see each other) to subside before he explains the rules. While he waits Astracius ensures all the competitors signed the release waivers. Mechascorpion has not been happy one bit since being transported away. His tail is flexed, ready to sting, and his pinchers have been clacking irritably as he paces, waiting for the games to start. "A safe distance. Ohhhh, but there is no safe distance from science, ohhohoho, no there is not. And when I show them...eh...heh. heheheheheheheheheheh, when I finally show them, I'll prove that I, PINCHER, am the greatest Autobot scientist of all!" He notices that the cameras have been rolling for most of this and stares at them for a moment. And then: "AHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA!" clackclackclackclackclack One of the holo-transmitters comes on-screen to... whiteness. Just a lot of whiteness. Did it already blow up? Because there's nothing... oh wait, look closely at the texture. There's a cloth or something over the device. Eventually shadows move into silhoueted view against the whiteness and after a moment manic shouting can be heard. "Where is the tarp? There is suppose to be a tarp over this thing, it's almost time to start and there is no tarp to have a proper unveiling tarp to pull off of it! What idiot didn't..." Pause, shadow moves as if looking at the transmitter. "... Oh, there it is. Some jackshaft left it on top of the terminal." The white flutters abruptly as it's yanked off the transmitter, revealing Carjack whipping it aside to throw it over whatever it's suppose to be on just off-camera. Puts his hands on his hips afterwards. "There, that's better." Then he turns and walks over to the transmitter, taking up the view with his approach and then leaning into it for an extreme close-up, flipping up his HUD-visor as he does so and grinning with his mouth of needle-like teeth. "You people are so lucky you're on the other side of this thing. Though kind of a pity. Means we can't blow each other up in the process. Ahahahahaha--Hey!" He jerks upright and takes a few steps back to shout off-frame. "There's suppose to be a thundercrack to go with the evil scientist laughter!" Cue said cheezy thunderboom sound effect. "Don't do it now you idiot, the moment is lost!" Carjack shakes a fist. "Just don't miss the cue next time!" WHEELJACK is sitting on a stool. Where he got a stool from, nobody really knows. But perhaps it has something to do with the big pile of random bits of this and that scattered around him. He's made himself a stool and now he's in the process of welding something else together. Whatever it is, it has a face and there's also some kind of weird antennae thing on it. He's really preoccupied with whatever it is that he's working on so he doesn't really hear the announcement for whatever this competition it is. When he finally takes a break from welding, he kind of turns around to notice that the camera is right there in his face. "Wait, what?" Wheeljack is all lit up as he responds to the cameras. Whatever that thing is he was working on starts to go on the fritz, sparking like crazy before a small explosion happens and it falls apart, landing in a pile of random parts. Wheeljack lights up again, "... I can fix that." Another explosion and his stool goes away, dropping Wheeljack down and off-ground. Smoke. Fire. And then Wheeljack's hand rises up in front of the camera, where he proceeds to give a thumbs up. That's, y'know, on fire. Outrider is somewhere pink. Somewhere very, excessively pink: Pink sky, pink sand, variations of pink metal for her workstation which has been neatly arranged with the cutest purple accents (all Decepticon propaganda). There is a Decepticon insignia with a pink bow on one of the top horns plastered across a black flag planted in the ground. The huge monitor behind her is blank black. Unfortunately for them, four random seekers have been drug in as assistants, and they, took have been painted in adorable colors. One of them is mouthing 'please kill me' because he has been decorated as Hello Kitty. "Hello everyone!" outrider announces with a big wave and a relentlessly cheerful smile. "I'm ready to make everyone in the glorious Decepticon empire proud!" She holds up a Shockwave beanie baby and makes it wave to the audience. In her best 'shockwave' impression, Outrider says out of the side of her mouth, "I approve of all this science, it is very logical!" She makes him wave his tiny light-up gun hand. She pumps a fist into the air. "I'm also ready to show those DIRTY STINKING GERM-RIDDLED TERRORIST AUTOBOTS THE MEANING OF SOUL-CRUSHING DESPAIR!" Her optics are huge and she's crushing that beanie baby really hard as she practically foams at the mouth, breathing heavily, hunched forward. And then she's fine again. "With science! Tee hee!" Each round will he two parts (though the only difference is the stat rolled), Theory (Int) and Practical (Tech). In each part you will pose, and then roll against a given target for the round. You can raise the number you roll against to score more. You can also use appropriate skills to EITHER increase your score if you succeed or give you the chance to re-roll if you fail. You need to decide prior to rolling which (via paging me). Scoring works like this: 20 points for failing (we're kind), 40 points for a successful roll + the amount you raise the base roll by, +10 points if you used a skill to boost, and finally each part will have a judges bonus of 30 points which Astra will reward for whatever IC reason he feels like (making me laugh may actually work). I MAY move it to having both rolls off one pose, will see how we go on round 1." Astracius speaks once more, tired of the slaves present already, and unimpressed by the collective intelligence presented in an event that should have attracted the best of the best. However, he will make do he supposes. "For your first challenge, I have taken inspiration from humanity who seem to envy and desire this above so many other things. Therefore, you will attempt to solve a problem of epic proportions." At least that's what his research says is the case, and he wants to start of small. "You have each been supplied with a dummy that will represent a human only with less slime. Your task is to turn this dummy human into a 'chick magnet'. You may begin the theory phase with your proposed scientific solutions." Background music, unintrusive but present, starts up: http://youtu.be/G-nkIECIBWM Mechascorpion cackles with glee as he scuttles to work, using his barbed tail to slice open the best of his dummy, and then stuffing a strange cannister into it's chest cavity. He hrms for a moment, and then AH-HAS, pulling a tacklebox open with his pinchers. From the tackle box, he pulls a large cannister with a skull and crossbones, and then shatters it on the fake human's head, allowing it to soak into it's rubber pores. The mannequin begins to shake violently, and suddenly a flat black substance, not unlike Venom's symbiote, begins spreading across it's body! As it spreads, Pincher addresses the camera. "In my studies, human females are drawn to males that are deemed 'cool.' Based on my observations, 'cool' males wear all black, dye their hair black, and listen to metal that is deemed 'black.' HYPOTHESIS! If a human being were filled with densely stacked carbon nanotubes, a material that absorbs 99.9% of the light it touches, spliced at the atom with a violent and hungry space cancer, that human being would become infinitely black so as to become a living light eating shadow! BEHOLD THE MOST ATTRACTIVE OF HUMAN MALES!" Indeed, the substance has spread across the dummy: It's actually hard to look directly at now, as light is being completely absorbed by it. "THE ULTIMATE HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE FANTASY! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BEHOLD IT'S INFINITE COOLNESS AND LOVE OF THE MOVIE THE CROW!" Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Arcee stares at Pincher's experiment curiously from the observation stand. "..." She wondered if that really held a special appeal to human females, because it wasn't doing anything for her personally. "Oooh, aaaah, my processor is so hot," Says Zipline in a deadpan, sarcastic tone of voice. She's perched on the back of a chair next to Arcee and making gagging motions with a paw. "Has he even seen a human femme?" Although not participating, the little cat tape is still dressed for the competition; She's decked out in a large (technically speaking. It's small for a transformer) white lab coat and a pair of goggles. Carjack had already started to rummage through whatever was scattered about him due to salvager instincts. "Dummy? Let's see here...." He throws a couple of things about before finally pulling out the indicated decoy. "Ah, here we are, dummy." Turns it over a few times, then dangles it between to fingers to poke it with one from his other hand. "Is this a polymer or ballistics gel? Bah, no matter. Chick magnet, away!" With a cackle he sets the dummy down and takes a few steps back, the camera panning to keep him in view. "Alright you fools, pay attention. Because some idiot asked to be a chick magnet." He turns and shouts off camera. "GET ME SOME CHICKS." Then turns back to the camera. "Despite what the space squid says this is -easy-. Because SCIENCE." He pulls out his injector gun, fiddling with the chemical settings. "As every idiot with at least half a processor knows, magnets attract on opposite polarities. So first we take a combination of pheromones and magnetically charged particals and make a biochemical slurry out of it. Which is applied to the proposed 'chick magnet'... " He takes the vial out of the chem-cun and SMASHES it over the dummy. Then takes out another vial. "Then through likely drugging a drink or whatever, a compound composed of the polar opposite magnetic charge and pheromons -- opposites attract remember! -- is slipped to the 'chicks'. Here, put this in the chicks." He throws the vial off camera. "And then the two will be unable to seperate! AHAHAHAHAH--" Instead of a thundercrack however, he gets several irritated squacks. ".. What the.." Several chickens fly past him to stick to the dummy. ".. Morons! Chick is slang for a human female, not ACTUAL CHICKENS!... And where did you even get those out here, anywa--" He's interrupted again as the chickens abruptly explode, knocking him on the floor. It takes a moment before he finally wobbles a hand back on-screen. "Warning: Side effects include phero-magnetic compound being highly violatile in avian biochemical composition... ugh..." Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 60: Success! Zipline holds both forepaws to her mouth as a megaphone. "MORE EXPLOS-" Then the chickens explode. "... Torn between 'yay' and 'ick'." Arcee hehs at Zipline's costume. "Wow, you went all out for this," she remarks. After watching Carjack's presentation, she shakes her head slowly. "I'm almost afraid to ask what qualifies as a 'winning' entry..." Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 60: Success! Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Technical to 70: Success! Outrider carefully considers this request. "A chick magnet, huh? Ohhh, I know ALL ABOUT chick magnets. The rest of you aren't even chicks! I'm clearly going to win this!" She holds up a datapad labeled EROTIC FRIEND-FICTION. "I have collected the writings of thousands of hormonally-driven human females of breeding age from their primitive datanet! Within these countless poorly-constructed excuses for lust-driven fantasies lies the key to creating the ULTIMATE HUMAN MALE! I will, with the help of my assistants, scan for the mos read and reviewed pieces of fiction to create a composite human male guaranteed to be, as the humans say, 'drowning in it!'" She pauses and looks to the seekers and whispers loudly at him, "What are they drowning in again? I didn't think drowning was part of the mating ritual." He shrugs, wide eyed. "I dunno!" A second one looks horrified, "Wait, we have to READ THOSE THINGS?!" "YES," Outrider snaps, shaking Shockwave-beanie at them. "Each of you have a copy, now GET TO WORK!" She picks up her copy and begins thumbing through it, searching rapidly for keywords; the four Seekers gingerly pick up their datapads and begin to look through the indexes. Some of them begin to tremble. Others keep looking away. Hello Kitty-tron openly weeps. "SWEET MERCIFUL PRIMUS I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!" Outrider, clearly furious at her incompetent help, jumps up on the Seeker and stands on his legs while grabbing his neck. "YOU WILL READ ABOUT TOUCHING BUTTS OR I WILL RIP AND TEAR YOUR MISERABLE FACES INSIDE OUT UNTIL YOU NO LONGER MATCH YOUR OWN TECHSPECS!!!" she snarls savagely, before suddenly giving him a winning smile. "Pretty please?" She hops down. "MY IMMORTAL? FULL LIFE CONSEQUENCES?! GOKU SAVES ANNE FRANKE?!?!?!" The four Seeker's head simply explodes. Outrider enters the data from the collapsing, sobbing seekers who are now curled into fetal balls on the ground into the huge computer. The computer projects the ultimate chick magnet down into the dummy in holographic form: It's a sparkling anime bad-boy with elf ears, long hair, vampire teeth, a thin body and fashionable clothes. And it's hugging another similarly attired man. "SEE!? HUMAN FEMALES WANT SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T WANT THEM! FORBIDDEN FRUIT!" Combat: Outrider compares her Intelligence to 60: Failure :( Combat: Outrider compares her Intelligence to 60: Success! Combat: Outrider compares her Technical to 60: Success! Arcee hmms at Outrider's presentation thoughtfully...then claps a few times. Well *done*. Zipline makes a disgusted face. "For some reason I just want to shoot it and get us all out of our misery." Carjack manages to get up off the ground and shake off some you-probably-dont-want-to-know in time to see Outrider's 'experiment' via the holo-transmissions. Only to snarl and leer away from it, holding up his hands in front of his face. "DEAR STRAXUS ITS HIDEOUS!" For his part, while he waits the final competitors solution, Astracius has been taking notes. He definitely seems to enjoy the torturing of the seekers. "Ah, yes. The dummy. I had one of those but I needed it for parts. For something else." Looking at Wheeljack will show that he's been transported to a new location. He blew up the last one or something because that stool and that fire are no longer there. Right now, though, is probably where he will be spending the rest of this. Y'know, if he doesn't blow this one up either. If anyone can see the holoboard on the wall, whatever planet he was previously on has been scratched out. There's a list of like seven more beneath it though. "So! I've decided to use an actual human. I have one around here somewhere." Wheeljack rushes over to a big crate that he has drawn out of somewhere. He pops it open and starts throwing things out. A few science fiction characters get thrown out, a couple of Go-Bots, an animatronic Albert Einstein and a fedora. These things pile up nearby but Wheeljack is probably frowning (he has no mouth so figure that out) as he can't seem to find it. "Although, I can't seem to find him. It. Him It. Whatever!" There's a wave of his hand as he closes the crate down, which reveals the human clinging to it as if it were his last hiding place on -- whatever planet he's on. "Oh! There you are! I knew it!" Wheeljack grabs the human by the shirt and slowly peels him away from the top of the crate before setting him down in front of the camera. The human looks terrified. Wheeljack's back to lighting up as he speaks to the camera. "According to Terran Pop Culture from the last hundred or so years, there are some elements that can be used to attract the opposite sex. However, I have decided to forego such elements in favor of a more practical means of magnetism." Wheeljack turns to another crate (he has a lot of those) and he yanks out a... bow tie? "Here we have a bowtie. As I understand it, bowties are cool." He slaps it against the human and it sticks. How that happens, even Wheeljack doesn't know. "So! What I've done is I've combined the Terran Pop Culture Elements with the Practicality of Theoretical Physical Attraction. But it would be foolish to stop there, when I can add a splash of Gravitational Modification Arrays." Wheeljack's lights stay lit for just a bit more after that, as if he's trying to show that he's smiling. Maybe he's smiling. He really needs to make that faceplate of his retractable. "I've taken it upon myself to isolate the pheremonal content of the Terran Female through a series of anonymous trials. It has been broken down and concentrated into a liquid form that I have hastily bottled here." Wheeljack brings up a small bottle that looks like it should be a cologne bottle, but also has been Sharpie'd on with the words: Prime Direction. "It is my guarantee that with one spray from this concoction, this Terran will become a, as you all call it, Chick Magnet." And then he turns towards the human and sprays it on the bowtie. But his aim is off so he kind of sprays the human in the face. Suddenly, a swarm of chicks (human, alien and one cybertronian) get sucked into the room, space, on-camera, bowling over Wheeljack and basically overflowing the camera so much that the lens cracks. The poor Human gets buried with Wheeljack and there's really nothing left to do but have Wheeljack's voice say, "HA! IT WORKED!" Then the camera explodes. Too much female. Screen overload. Good thing there are spares. Combat: Wheeljack compares his Intelligence to 85: Success! Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 85: Failure :( Zipline's optics blink out once, as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing and is running a diagnostic on them. Then they blink back on. "What just happened?" Astracius marks the competitors entries, as he is obviously the best judge of science (and oddly his opinion matches exactly with what !check results come up with). He also decides to give his bonus points to Pincher for his efforts, or just because he likes messing with the natural order of things. The score display updates with the scores for the round... 1) Pincher ROUND SCORE: 100 TOTAL SCORE: 100 2) Wheeljack ROUND SCORE: 95 TOTAL SCORE: 95 3) Carjack ROUND SCORE: 80 TOTAL SCORE: 80 3) Outrider ROUND SCORE: 80 TOTAL SCORE: 80 Having been speaking with one of the behind the scenes humans, Astracius has a scowl on his face, "It seems that a chick magnet is not what I thought it was. Lesson learned, we will no longer be taking inspiration from the humans." Which is fine, as now Astracius can begin to truly collect information that could be of use later. "For your second challenge, there is a planet near your locations that has dormant volcanoes, you are to cause them to erupt. I will be all the more impressed the more volcanoes you make erupt." The background music changes to: http://youtu.be/LkIWmsP3c_s Zipline lifts the goggles off of her forehead, and drops them down over her optics. "Now for the good stuff," She says, grinning fangily. Olympics 2035 Science Contest/CHALLENGE - Set. "I didn't know you were into science, Zip," Arcee says with a grin. "I'm not really," Zipline says, grinning at Arcee. "I'm into explosions!" Carjack rubs his hands together with prehaps a little too much glee as the next event is announced. "Ooooh, planetary scale cataclysmic environmental disaster. There may be something worth putting a Quint in charge of this event yet!.. Wait, is the planet inhabited?" Carjack turns to shout off-camera. "Someone find out if the planet is inhabited!" Wait, a Decepticon concerned with habitation? "I need to know how much potential carbon based biology there is going to be burning if it is!" Nevermind. Carjack taps a finger to his chin a few times, then ahas. Flips down his visor and starts going through a few files. "I already caused an earthquake in middle of a charity baseball game, this should be a piece of protocake. Which is not a lie!" He opens his chest compartment and takes out a large fuel cell, sets that aside and slaps the chest panel shut again. Then opens the storage compartments in his upper arms and pulls out a few other odds and ends around it. Then he sits down and gets to work, resulting in a montage of activity of technical work and gribbling that actually manages to almost match the background music rythmn. "Installing!.. Welding!.. Rewiring!.. Infusing!.. Charging!.." He slaps the top of the device and it starts to light up, spinning bands of red and orange colors cycling around the... thing. Which has what looks like rocket fins and maneuvering thrusters jury-rigged onto it as well. He slaps a nosecone on top and welds it on, then grabs it and stands up to hold it over his head. "BEHOLD! THE VOLCANTRONIC INDUCINATOR! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAH!" He sets the device down and backs out of view of the screen as he continues to ramble. "By contaminating this kinetic energy cell with a geothermic sample from the constantly churning flows of Thrull, by launching it into the planet's molten inner layers through a volcanic crater," He hits a button off-screen and the volcantro-whatever blasts out of view, then leans back onto camera himself, "the resulting super-thermical chain reaction will make that planet's tectonic infrastructure burst like a heavily shaken soda can!" His holo-display changes to an orbital view of his target planet, markers flicking on to mark each of the red-orange plumes of eruptions to follow and opening up insert windows to spot the actual locations. Hopefully there will be a lot of them!... Mechascorpion cackles as he HANDILY BESTS WHEELJACK (by five points) and perks to live at the prospect of exploding volcanoes! The camera pulls out, revealing that Pincher is indeed standing on the rim of a volcano, the first of several hundred in a chain. A robot wearing clothes and a big hat that is, under no circumstances, an Insecticon that Pincher kidnapped and has been torturing (experimenting on) stands next to him, shivering. Pincher addresses the camera. "Volcanoes! Plaything of the gods! And if science is next to godlihood, then..." He snickers to himself got a moment, and then beholds loudly. "BEHOLD! Reverocardoxigan, the most flamable material in the living Universe! My stinger is FULL OF IT!" He quickly stabs the Insecticon in the chest, filling him with the substance, and pushes him into the volcano, screaming with glee as he awaits for MASSIVE CHAIN ERUPTIONS. None happen. But at least he murdered someone. Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Intelligence to 80: Success! Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Technical to 80: Success! Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 80: Success! "A quick scan of the area shows that there's an awful lot of flora down there. Tiny bits, single celled," Outrider announces to the camera, standing now in front of a whiteboard. The volcano looms large in the background, jutting up against pink skies again. Far in the distance, the remaining three assistant Seekers are trying to haul something between them a cargo net spread out and absolutely LOADED with something glittering and rainbow hued. They're flying to the volcano. Outrider scribbles on the whiteboard *SQUEEK* *EAAAK* *SQUIGGA* as she quickly draws what looks like Ms. Pacman with her mouth open. "These little plants - candida astrographus I believe - are hungry and they just so happen to produce acetic acid." She scribbles in stick figure seekers holding a giant piece of candy. "But they need food!" She draws an arrow from the candy into the mouth of Ms Pacman. "The best part is, there's a whole lotta NaHCO3 down there! Once you get the acid with that, there will be A MASSIVE ORGANIC GAS EXPLOSION!" she says proudly, drawing a volcano over the Ms. Pacman and then erasing her and drawing her blowing up. "That should be enough to wakey-wakey Mister sleepyhead volcano. I'm even donating my entire month's supply of Pixle Sticks for this!" "This is just a MONTH'S WORTH?" One Seeker questions. "Well that would explain a lot," Second Seeker says as they fly over the area. "You know, I think I'm beginning to get an idea of why she's the only gumby medic to survive out of her own unit," the third complains as they drop the cargo into the volcano. There's an ominious rumble as the top of the volcano begins to fizz and foam, before-- *BOOOOM* ... The entire area is coated in candy soda rain. Outrider sticks out a finger and tastes it. She makes a face. "Ew, glove flavor." She's forgotten she's wearing gloves. Combat: Outrider compares her Intelligence to 70: Success! Combat: Outrider compares her Technical to 70: Success! Wheeljack is in the middle of setting up his new camera. Maybe some Olympic officials have helped to clear out everything, all the females, because there's all kinds of things going on in the background. And most of them have to do with getting the females cleared out. "Eruptions, eh? Hmmmm." It looks like Wheeljack is actually pondering this for a few moments. "Aha! I've got just the thing!" And then he's throwing open the crate and he's digging through. Things, as usual, get thrown out one after another because that's how he works and right now Wheeljack is making sure that the things being thrown out are as painful to the Olympic officials cleaning up female bodies. "Now, where did I put tha-- aha!" Wheeljack pops back up and he's holding a gigantic weapon that looks kind of like a bazooka. And then he proceeds to start attaching it to some kind of drone or something. "I call this weapon of mine: The Freshmaker. What I've done is recalibrate the launching mechanism in the barrel of this amazing weapon of my personal design to launch these small discs of concentrated combustible foam." Wheeljack pauses long enough to hold up a small bloated disc that looks, well, like a damn Mentos. "I've loaded about two dozen of these into The Freshmaker and set the automated coordinates on this drone to take it the volcano. Due to the potency of each disc, I've set it up for a single launch for each volcano. Should do the trick." With a few more adjustments, Wheeljack sets the drone on a teleportation plate and the camera shifts to a screen that's near Wheeljack's head. "Watch this." And, of course, the screen turns into the entire shot and the flying drone (which looks almost like an Amazon Delivery Drone) appears in the surface of the planet. It soars with incredible speed, right above one of the volcanoes... before something starts to go wrong. The drone veers to the left and to the right, before it seems to lose altitude and then it gains altitude. At the height of ascent, the drone explodes, destroying The Freshmaker in the process. Wheeljack's voice can be heard, "Well. That was unexpected." SIGH. Oh. But behold. The explosion has caused the entirety of The Freshmaker's ammunition to rain down upon the volcanoes below. This could be good and bad. And there might not be a planet left. Wheeljack's probably not even watching anymore. He's likely moving on to another side project. He figures this one was a bust. He may be right. Combat: Wheeljack compares his Intelligence to 80: Success! Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 80: Success! Astracius marks the competitors entries, as he remains the best judge of science (and oddly his opinion still matches exactly with what !check results come up with). He also decides to give his bonus points to Carjack for his efforts, or possibly because while the theory wasn't great, in practice it blew up a large number of volcanoes. Alas the planets are not inhabited, so no villagers to scare with angry volcano gods. The score display updates with the scores for the round... 1) Wheeljack ROUND SCORE: 130 TOTAL SCORE: 225 2) Pincher ROUND SCORE: 120 TOTAL SCORE: 220 3) Carjack ROUND SCORE: 115 TOTAL SCORE: 195 4) Outrider ROUND SCORE: 90 TOTAL SCORE: 170 Well the clean up from those volcanoes will keep nobody busy since nobody cares. Though the energy collectors Astracius has planted are certainly busy collecting energy for him now. They should be clear long before the later rounds. For now, the Quintesson once more addresses the inferior scientists, "Pitiful efforts the lot of you. However some more pitiful than others. For your third challenge there are asteroid belts in each of your solar systems. You are required to create an efficient way to destroy these asteroids. Now hurry up and clear those asteroids!" The background music changes to: http://youtu.be/73cWfFEKAfE "An asteroid field. Well... an asteroid field is just a broken planet," Outrider muses thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "Boys, I'm going to need the molecular resurfacer. Trypticon-size," she says to the remaining three Seekers. All four of them suddenly whip out and don four massive white labcoats, while pulling down protective eye goggles. Hello Kitty-tron nods with determination to Outrider. "Let's do this." Riding the white and pale pink, cat-eared Seeker (she glued them on him, the poor glitch) like Shockwave riding Starscream, Outrider has strapped a huge battery pack to her back, and is holding a massive rail-gun shaped beam cannon. "PLANETARY REPAIR SEQUENCE WITH A ROLLER-COASTER TWIST: ENGAGE!" she announces as the Seeker under her, and his two wingmen (also sporting giant healing lasers) spread out and enage in a flying and shooting sequence worthy of Michael Bay. The best part is, no one anyone loves is going to die! (Which may be bad news for all of them, when you think about it). White beams with red plus-shaped plasma modules are zapped through the asteroid field; the surfaces become tacky at a quantum level and are pulled towards each other. They begin to cluster closer and closer, becoming red, then orange, then yellow, then white hot! They might form a planetoid - or they might just EXPLODE! "Oh dear, the gravitons are getting a little greasy out here!" Outrider's monitor says, before it whites out. Her voice crackles over the com link, "MY GLOB, IT'S FULL OF STARS!" The asteroid field promptly - UNEXPLODES. Mechascorpion can hardly believe it. "Wheeljack...WINNING?!" This just won't due AT ALL. "Asteroids, eh?" He clickclacks as he thinks for a moment, before inspiration hits him... The scorpion goes to work, scuttling through piles of equipment, piecing together engines and wiring until he reveals...A GIANT MAGNET. He taps at a control panel with his pinchers, and the magnet hovers to the center of the volcano. "TO THE SHUTTLE!" Laughing like a stoned jester, he scurries into a small Autobot shuttle and takes off. Were there...other robots on that shuttle? A short period of time later, the shuttle returns. If there was anyone on board, it's completely empty now. Pincher addresses the camera. "And now I shall prove that not only am I the greatest scientist of all time, I am also...THE MASTER OF MAGNETISM!" He begins tapping on the control panel and the Magnet starts to hum violently. "Now, the asteroids have been fitted with...erm...metal...test subjects, erm.. Objects. The super magnet will draw them here, exploding both the asteroids AND volcanoes! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHERK-" Pincher's mad cackle is cut off when he is pulled into the magnet, followed by the shuttle! Followed by the camera! A huge shadow casts over the region and the feed goes dead! Combat: Outrider compares her Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Intelligence to 85: Success! Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Technical to 85: Failure :( Combat: Outrider compares her Technical to 90: Failure :( Combat: Mechascorpion compares his Technical to 85: Success! Combat: Outrider compares her Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Combat: Outrider compares her Technical to 90: Failure :( "Cleaning asteroid belts? Isn't that why they made Bonecrusher able to bulldozer in space? Whatever!" Carjack kicks over a random piece of equipment and sits on it, needing to mull over the moment. Then pulls out his holo-pad and starts processing calculations, muttering under his breath. Then throws the device over his shoulder and gets up. "Knew I should of paid more attention to quantum metaphysics. Oh well! I wouldn't be a mad doctor if I didn't screw around with forces I don't entirely understand! Bwaha!" "But first I need a subspace storage array... This one will do." He grabs one of the mechs that have been assisting him from offscreen, shoves him down, and activates his 'Jaws of Death'. Fortunately when he starts to tear into the poor gumbie and the fool starts screaming the camera discretion-shot pans away from him. Though an occasional bit of kibble tumbles across the empty view. The screaming finally stops. And then Carjack walks back into camera holding the former assistant's subspace access device in one hand, and another device in the other. Both which he hands to another gumbie assistant that has what are clearly shuttle wings on his back. He looks like a bad palette swap of Astrotrain and only half his size. "You, fly out to that asteroid belt. Okay? Go." He doesn't give the guy a chance to object before shoving him off screen, and turning back to the camera engines can be heard roaring off-screen as the mook takes off. "Give it a few moments...." He checks a watch he's not actually wearing. Finally a second insert window blips to life alongside his display. "Good! Now, insert the zero point micro-singularity generator INTO the subspace pocket..." Clearly this mech has no conprehension of the big technobabbly words, because he does so without a second thought. Though he does look a little concerned when the array starts to shake afterwards, holding it out away from him. Carjack grins at the camera. "Do you know what happens when you put one bottomless transdimensional space inside -another- transdimensional space?" He pays no attention to the gumbie holding the device starting to tremble as well from the vibrations. "Me either! That's why it's EXPERIMENTING! SCIENCE! FOR THE--" He's cut off by the secondary view erupting with a scream from the space-gumbie as hundreds of asteroids hurtle towards him, only to comically compress down into the device. Followed by the screaming getting warped and distorted as HE TOO is sucked into it, until finally falling silent. And then the thing explodes, so intense it turns the entire screen blinding white as all that energy is spewed back out into open space. Carjack stares at it for a moment, then huhs softly. "I guess two theoretical minature black holes make a minature, cosmically speaking, white hole. Who knew." He then turns the other way and holds one hand up to his mouth to shout off-camera. "We're gonna need a new Timmytron!" Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 80: Failure :( Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 80: Success! Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 80: Failure :( Wheeljack looks at the camera. "I see. Well, I suppose now would be as good of a time as any to show you all just what I've been working on. It's an invention of mine that I've been fiddling with for quite some time. I had been tasked with this invention a while ago, but since then I've died and come back. Twice, I think. So it is has been a trying time for getting this finished. But! I am proud and honored to present to you all my new demolition invention..." A drumroll comes out of nowhere as Wheeljack holds up something no larger than a golf ball. "The Wrecking Pinball." Perhaps there is a pause for gasping and applause that Wheeljack won't hear since he is transmitting holographically to those that are watching and judging. But either way, he's lit up brightly as if he's come full circle with his happiness. He's like a little talking mad scientist flashlight. "What I've done with this is that I've excavated minerals from Planet Hansa Montansa, specifically Milay and Cyrush, and molded them into an impact explosive paste. I then filled this Vibranium encased ball with the substance which should, upon impact, create enough violent force to destroy anything it touches, while not harming the ball itself. With the right trajectory, which I have calculated here," Wheeljack holds up a holoboard that shows a charted out path for the invention to travel through the asteroid belt. "This ball should cause a controlled chain reaction that, with a little luck and a lot of skill, destroys the aforementioned asteroid belt. Let's find out!" Wheeljack shoves the ball into another one of his drones and sends it through the teleporter plate and off into the space where those asteroids are. "Hang on to your gravitons." he says as he presses the launch button on his drone. The drone drops the ball and it misses the first asteroid, sailing past the entire belt and down towards the planet below. "Uhhhhh. That planet is uninhabited, right?" For the longest time nothing happens. Really, nothing does. But eventually, the planet itself seems to be, well, kind of shaking. And for anyone with some good optics, there are starting to be cracks in the surface of the planet. "Uh! Okay! Next challenge! Let's move on, heh... heh heh." Wheeljack starts trying to turn off the screen where this is happening but it only enlarges the picture. And eventually pieces of the planet start breaking off sailing off in the general direction of where the asteroid belt is. And yeah, this is probably not going to end well. "I can fix that! I can fix that!" Wheeljack starts running around his area with a little bit of franticness. "... I can't fix that." There are more quakes and such and eventually the video feed cuts out. "-- transporting to new location!" Well, at least the audio still works for the moment. Cue: Tardis Sound Effect. Combat: Wheeljack compares his Intelligence to 90: Success! Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 90: Failure :( Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 90: Failure :( Astracius marks the competitors entries, as he is obviously the best judge of science (and oddly his opinion matches exactly with what !check results come up with). He also decides to give his bonus points to Carjack again, just because. The score display updates with the scores for the round... 1) Pincher ROUND SCORE: 110 TOTAL SCORE: 330 2) Wheeljack ROUND SCORE: 80 TOTAL SCORE: 305 3) Carjack ROUND SCORE: 100 TOTAL SCORE: 295 4) Outrider ROUND SCORE: 40 TOTAL SCORE: 210 Good thing those asteroids were all destroyed (possibly), since they were on a collision course with where the scientists are located (wait... did you not know that? Darn, well signed a waiver). "Okay enough being generous. Last place is eliminated this round, so Outrider, if the female slave sill lives (it's okay we have her waiver) is eliminated." Just how eliminated who can say. "Right, for the next challenge it's time to separate the slaves from the slightly more capable slaves who are still sucky." But at least more capable. "A number of years ago you despicable slaves destroyed Quintessa. I say this was a fluke, a singular event that none of you could ever repeat. So time to prove me right. Your challenge is to blow up a planet. Though not the one with the volcanoes, no head starts here." Astracius pauses, looking at Wheeljacks hologram, "And no slave, you don't get points for jumping to the next challenge so quickly, now you just have less planets to choose from!" The background music changes to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvAUvRU5QV0 Carjack pfffts and rolls his optics. "We already caused planet wide geothermal tectonic activity." He kicks open a display sized holo-panel and starts scribbling out stuff on it with a lightpen like it was a dry erase board. "A whole planet is easy. You just don't stop at the magma layer." Scribble scribble scribble, and then down in the corner he draws a circle for the planet. And then a smaller circle inside. "You go all the way to the core!" He marks a big red X over the planet diagram, then throws the light pen as he walks off. Walks back in dragging whatever device he threw the tarp over. "I've been waiting for a chance to test this baby out." He grabs the tarp and whips it off dramatically to reveal .... what looks like a gigantic top, with the spiraling edge of a drill around it, and jet engines sticking out of the top at angles to arrange them in a circle. "Everyeone knows that gravity is caused by graviton particles." He turns and points at the camera. "And don't start that theoretical nonsense! If I wanted your opinions I'd blow up YOUR planet to extrac them!" Turns back to the device. "Anyways... this is a gravitonic particle gyroscopial destablizer. It bores down to the core of a small planetoid and spins at such a speed that it destablizes the planet's internal particle fields ary, twisting the graviton leylines until they rip apart the terrestrial infrastructure like it was shoved in a blender on Puree." He taps his chin as he leans on the device. "Except I need to figure out how to get it over the--" *BEEP BEEP BEEP* -ACTIVATION SEQUENCE ENGAGED- Carjack gets up slowly as he looks down to see he leaned on the BIG RED BUTTON on the side of the contraption. "-- On second thought... Achem." He flips down the visor to his helmet, then throws his hands over his head as he runs for the teleporter as the device roars to life and the engines start to spin it down through the geostructure. "ABANDON PLANET!" Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 80: Failure :( Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 80: Success! The static from Wheeljack's holoproject finally disappears and is replaced with Wheeljack in a new location and with all his stuff. There are Olympic Safety Officials tearing off their badges and stalking off towards anywhere but where Wheeljack is. As for Wheeljack, he seems to not be bothered, in the least, by having to change locations. And, in fact, he's reading a book: How To Destroy A Planet In 60 Seconds. When he realizes he's back on camera, he pulls the book down and peers over it with glowing optics. "Ah! As I suspected and have already proven that I can do with ease. Excellent!" Wheeljack then hurls the book over his shoulder, which promptly knocks out the remaining Safety Official (the one that didn't quit) and that's all they wrote. "Now then, pay attention. In order to successfully destroy a planet you need three things. The first, of course, being a planet." Wheeljack gets up from his seat and wanders over to a view screen which shows a nice planet just sitting there and waiting to be exploded. "Oh look. I just happen to have one right here." Is Wheeljack giving a lesson? Yes. Yes, he is. He's even got one of those extendable pointing things. Because that's just how he likes to do these things. "Secondly, you're going to need a method of destruction. Now, there are many variables to consider when selecting a method of destruction. Some go for speed, some go for damage. Myself? I like to think outside of the circle. I go for a little something I like to call Obstructional Override of Paradoxial Science. More commonly referred to as OOPS." Wheeljack folds down the extendable pointer and throws it off-screen. "For those of you that don't know what OOPS is, let me explain. It is the theoretical scientific discipline that states accidents are on purpose and that purposeful acts are simply the byproduct of previous accidents. Which, if you think about it, means that there are no such things as accidents as they would be unable to be carried out in a purposeful manner due to the nature of their historical significance within the spectrum of anti-truth." Wheeljack just nods along with whatever he's saying as if it is fact. "So, you see, I have a planet. I have OOPS. But yet, I am still missing a crucial element to being able to destroy this beautiful planet. And that is what I'm going to use to destroy it." Wheeljack lights up once more, brightening everything, as he pulls up what looks to be a remote control. "Clearly, I anticipated this would be a challenge and I've already prepared. Orbiting this planet is a satellite of my own design. I've taken to calling it the LaBeouf, after a close and personal friend of mine. Anyway, the LaBeouf has been fitted with a very large sonic distortion cannon. I would go into my theories about sonic distortion being used in the vacuum of space but I haven't the time to break it down for you all to understand, so I'll cut right to the chase. What I'm going to do is use that sonic distortion cannon, which is aimed at the center of this planet, and I'm going to release a sound so incredibly inane that the planet itself will spontaneously combust in order to rid itself of the horrendous infraction." Wheeljack says all of this with a straight light show. He doesn't seem to think any part of his idea is completely bonkers. Not at all. "I have chosen a properly Unbeliebable sound to use for this. Interestingly, enough, I did not have to modify the sound at all to get it ready for this. I have the feeling that it will be serve its purpose and help create the geographical self-preservation disaster that I need to prove my OOPS theory. Let's watch." Wheeljack presses the green button on his remote control and the satellite turns just enough to face the planet before the huge cannon on the front of it seems to fire off visible waves of sound towards the planet below. The audio picks up on the sound as the moment the first wave hits the planet, almost as if Wheeljack is on the planet on the view screen. But nah, he couldn't make the same mistake twice in a ro The audio picks up on the sound as the moment the first wave hits the planet, almost as if Wheeljack is on the planet on the view screen. But nah, he couldn't make the same mistake twice in a row... could he? The Sound: http://youtu.be/_Z5-P9v3F8w Combat: Wheeljack compares his Intelligence to 90: Failure :( Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 90: Success! Pincher's feed returns on a new planet. Pincher looks confused and startled. "What the?" His pinchers clack. "This isn't Iacon. There was... a singlarity. I thought I saw Carjack, that fool Autobot junior scientist..." He stares off camera for a moment, listening. "A science contest you say? THEN PERHAPS I'LL WIN IT! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Blow up a planet? BLOOOOOOW UP A PLANET!!" The Pretender from maybe an alternate universe that Carjack created after this universe's Pincher maybe died exploding a volcano with an asteroid maybe goes to work. Maybe. Ahem. "So many ways to destroy a planet...So many *boring* ways..." He perks for a moment. "Is this planet inhabited? No?" He looks disappointed. "Hrrmm...." Pincher continues working, humming a song about acid to himself. AUTOBOT SPINNY "HYPOTHESIS!" Pincher exclaims on board a shuttle, a safe distance away from the planet, "Beyond blackholes live a world of dark gods and unspeakably hungry monsters beyond our understanding! Were I to summon one, would he eat a planet? FIRST WE HAVE TO RIP SPACE AND TIME ASUNDER! INITIATE BLACK HOLELENING!" The scorpion gestures wildly with his pinchers and presses a button. Above the planet, a network of satellites scream to life, and in a flash of blinding light of tearing atoms and matter being ripped asunder...A BLACK HOLE OPENS! Pincher looks almost awed at what he's done, laughing nervously. "Now...what shall we see..." clackclick "...beyond?" Beyond the tear, there are several titanically large...humans? Each could easily hold a planet in their palm. One, a male, rubs his face, seemingly exhausted. "Do we still want this planet on the grid?" Another shrugs. "I'm charstaff, ask Randa." Both of them look to a third giant. A female. She rolls her eyes at them. "Seriously guys, just remember a few simple lines of code. Please? In between answering gripes and upgrading your armadillo?" She reaches through the tear, and takes the planet in her hand. "A whole planet of foxes is a little too inside baseball, anyway. No one gets the joke anymore." She pulls the planet back through the tear with her, and it seals behind her. Pincher transforms into his robot mode, speechless for a moment. "What are we...but playthings of gods?" KyeahahahahahahaHAHAHAHA! Pincher transforms into his ROBOT MODE! Combat: Pincher compares his Intelligence to 90: Success! Combat: Pincher compares his Technical to 90: Success! Astracius marks the competitors entries, as he is obviously the best judge of science (and oddly his opinion matches exactly with what !check results come up with). He also decides to split his bonus points between Wheeljack and Carjack, as he likes jacks it seems. The score display updates with the scores for the round... 1) Pincher ROUND SCORE: 120 TOTAL SCORE: 450 2) Wheeljack ROUND SCORE: 95 TOTAL SCORE: 400 3) Carjack ROUND SCORE: 85 TOTAL SCORE: 380 4) Outrider ROUND SCORE: 40 TOTAL SCORE: 210 Well those are some planets that ain't going to develop life on them, like ever. While he appreciates the destruction, it reminds him of Quintessa, which spoils his enjoyment of the destruction. However, he has a way to cheer himself up. "Right, time for the final round, the round to decide the winner and least lame slave scientist present!" Astracius shifts to his Deaths Head for this one, "For this, your challenge is to obliterate the solar system you are in. That is right, destroy everything. Escaping is optional, we can always award your a medal in death." The background music changes to: http://youtu.be/Xsp3_a-PMTw Pincher stares at the camera for a few minutes. "After all that? Destroy the solar system? Huh." He sits back on his legs. "I can do that, I guess." He walks off camera for a moment, and returns with a large space drone on his back. "Not...FANCY, persay, but ehheheheheheheheh...it'll get the job done ohohohoho yes it will." His tail hits the on button and the drone comes to life, hovering. "Are you my creator?," the drone asks, in a beep boop robot voice. Pincher clacks nervously. "Errrr, of course I am. Ohhhhh of course." The drone doesn't sound convinced. "You seem different, Wheeljack." Clacking with rage, Pincher opens the bay door. "Oh just get out there and explode that gravity bomb!" He passes the drone some energon treats, which it acccepts. Snacking on the treats, the drone winks. "Whatever you say, Autobot that is obviously Wheeljack, who created me." It zooms out of the airlock. Pincher glances at the camera. "We'll edit that out in post? Wait, we're li-" AUTOBOT SPINNY The solar system explodes. Pincher's shuttle lands on the moon. Combat: Pincher compares his Intelligence to 100: Failure :( Combat: Pincher compares his Technical to 100: Success! Combat: Pincher compares his Intelligence to 100: Failure :( Carjack flumps down on a rock on the planet he vacated to with a sigh. "That was a close one. Nearly got myself accidentally..." And then the judge says they're suppose to blow up the entire solar system? "... Seriously? After everything else we've destroyed along the way and he wants something so simple that it eventually occurs on its own in a few thousand millinium?" He gets up and interlaces his fingers to stretch his arms in front of him. "Fine, then." Followed by flicking open an arm panel and tapping the control there. "Okay, while we're waiting for the shuttle... Actually, I've got nothing. Just waiting." It's several long minutes of waiting. Long enough that Carjack starts to hum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDAFivGsKX4 to himself until it finally does descend into view, he climbs aboard, and it takes off again. When the holo-viewer switchs to inside he's already tearing open several panels clearly marked DO NOT OPEN around the glowing greebles of the shuttle's engine behind him. Starts pulling out wires and splicing them together. "Are you back with me? Good. As I'm sure the non morons out there know, a shuttle engine is basically a mobile fusion particle accelerator. And a stellar body is just a giant fusion gas ball that goes nova when it burns up all of it's primary stage of fuel. Soooo..." Cue the shuttle's emergency klaxons going off as all the lights turn to red. "This will be like slapping two of those clackers together... if the balls on the end were two astronomically large nuclear bombs, that is." He hits a button marked FINAL COUNTDOWN and runs as the camera fizzles out. Moments later the static clears to an outside view, catching the glimps of an escape pod ejecting from the shuttle as it plummets into the solar system's central star and it's overloaded engine core detonates, blasting the star's own fusion reactions into an accellerated break down that should cause it to go supernova and blow up everything else in that system. Combat: Carjack compares his Intelligence to 100: Failure :( Combat: Carjack compares his Technical to 100: Failure :( Fortunately, the star does indeed go supernova. Unfortunately, in doing so it unleashes a massive solar wind that throws the escape pod REALLY HARD AND FAR AWAY from the system, Carjack tumbling around inside as it's spun threw space haphazardly. "I REALLY DID NOT THINK THIS ONE THROUGH AT ALL!" Wheeljack's optics actually light up a bit more as he realizes what is being asked of him. He can't help it. He's not even speaking and his lit up like a blue sun. Even his optics have gone wide a bit at the prospect of doing something so scientific and amazing as destroying an entire solar system. It is, well, incredibly dangerous and incredibly difficult and if there's one mech that can do this, it would have to be, well, Wheeljack. "Destroying an entire solar system may seem like a big job but I can assure you that it can be easily done. There are many ways to do this, most of which would be incredibly taxing and dangerous to all involved. Not to mention they would take time. And that, my friends, is not a luxury that we have right now." Wheeljack pauses in his recitement and looks deeper into the camera. "Or do we?" Wheeljack walks over to something that is covered by a gigantic sheet. He reaches up and yanks the sheet off, revealing a large green and white 'police' box that looks like it comes from whatever the London section of Cybertron is. Wheeljack's animator is too lazy to look it up right now. Anyway, written on the side of it is Transdimensional Aand Retroactive Displacement of Yesterday. Wheeljack just lights up with another unseen smile as he opens the door. "I'd bring you all inside but then you won't get to witness my genius at its finest hour. But I want you all to do something. What I'm going to do to this solar system has never been done before. It is the most absolute and permanent solution as there can be. This? This is a prototype. I have no idea if its going to work. But I do know that if it does, there will be no doubt in my mind that I will prove to everyone, without a shadow of a doubt, that science... is cool." Wheeljack tilts his head at the camera. "Off I go! Keep your optics, eyes, antennae, whatever, on the screen. Don't--" And then Wheeljack disappears into the TARDY. It explodes. As the explosion continues, though, somewhere in the midst of the fiery ball of death that it creates, the explosion starts going backwards? And the spot where the TARDY exploded is empty. If one is still looking at the screen, they'll notice that it actually looks like time is moving backwards or something because withint an instant, the feed is just no longer there. Nor is the holoprojection. Nothing. It is all just gone. As if it were never in existence in the first place. Meanwhile, on the moon where all the festivities are, the body of Wheeljack appears, one arm missing and he's charred beyond belief. However, he's alive. And he's on the floor. One of his talk-lights is busted so only one blinks haphazardly as he speaks, "-- blink." the statement from an instant ago is finished, before his head drops to smack into the ground beneath him. Wait For It... And there's the TARDY, in all of its exploded pieces glory (because Wheeljack is not allowed to have continued access to a time machine) rains down upon the body of the scientist, burying him under the flaming wreckage of his own design. Wait For It Again... And there's his arm. Combat: Wheeljack compares his Intelligence to 100: Success! Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 100: Failure :( Combat: Wheeljack compares his Technical to 100: Failure :( Astracius marks the competitors entries, as he is obviously the best judge of science (and oddly his opinion matches exactly with what !check results come up with). Calling in multiple judges, Astracius finds 3 vote for Wheeljack and 1 for Pincher. The score display updates with the scores for the round... 1) Wheeljack ROUND SCORE: 160 TOTAL SCORE: 560 2) Pincher ROUND SCORE: 100 TOTAL SCORE: 550 3) Carjack ROUND SCORE: 40 TOTAL SCORE: 420 4) Outrider ROUND SCORE: 40 TOTAL SCORE: 210 The sacrifices made for the Olympics. Normally it's just buildings and scenery during fights. In this case 3 whole solar systems have been sacrificed, all in the name of SCIENCE! Oh what a cruel mistress she can be. Good thing there was no need for a tie breaker or anything, though it is a shame as Astracius had such a good plan to challenge them to destroy Cybertron and the first one to succeed would win. Alas not to be. As Wheeljack's image is brought onto the central hologram Astracius announces, "And the winner is Wheeljack! He has proven that he is slightly less lame than the best the slaves have to offer. And so, as well as getting a paltry gold medal, Wheeljack also receives some highly sought after Quintesson tech, in the shape of this reusable note entry system." On the hologram Wheeljack is handed an etch-a-sketch, with a sticker on it saying Quint-I-Padd. "Now, you may congratulate yourself, or shoot yourself in the head, I know which I would prefer you do. I am out of here."